Christopher G. Parker, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, 2024 - present
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, 2022-2024
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, The Scripps Research Institute, 2018 - 2022
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, The Scripps Research Institute (Ben Cravatt), 2013-2018
Ph.D., Yale University (David Spiegel), 2007-2013
B.S., Case Western Reserve University (Phil Garner), 2003-2007
cparker at scripps.edu
STAFF
Amina is from San Diego, California. She received a BS in General Biology from University of California, San Diego. Amina started her career as a chemical analyst performing CA ELAP and AIHA-LAP accredited organic and inorganic testing of air, water, oil, and solids in addition to also working as a technician in a clinical laboratory specializing in providing quantitative drug testing. Interested in pursuing research, Amina went on to work in drug discovery as a research assistant at Calibr, where she developed and optimized in-vitro and biochemical assays for high-throughput screening of compounds. In July 2023, Amina joined the Parker lab and is excited to provide technical and operational support.
Amina Ta
Lab Manager
Weichao is from Shanghai in China. He earned his master’s degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry as a dual culture candidate of Nanchang University and Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, CAS. During his master research in Dr. Yang Ye’s lab, Weichao focused on natural product identification and synthesis researches. Then he joined Dr. Youli Xiao’s lab in Institute of Plant Physiology & Ecology, SIBS, CAS as a Ph. D. candidate. His research was focus on design and implementation novel chemical biology applications to elucidate biological targets of bioactive molecules emerging from phenotypic screens to clarify the mechanisms. His major accomplishment is using affinity/activity-based proteomic strategy to profile the functional state of enzyme targets in native biological systems to assess the potency and selectivity of small molecule inhibitors. Since Feb. 2019, Weichao joined in both Dr. Parker and Dr. Huang’s lab as a joint postdoctoral associate, where he is interested in using chemoproteomics to investigate the relationship of cell transition and small molecules.
Weichao Li, Ph.D.
Staff Scientist
POSTDOCTORAL ASSOCIATES
Born in southern France, Clara received her BSc in Chemistry from ETH Zurich (CH), after which she underwent a MSc in Phytochemistry at UCL in London (UK). Following several industrial placements at Givaudan and BASF, she developed an interest in learning the ropes behind the design of medicinally active molecules. She obtained her PhD in medicinal chemistry from UCL in the Selwood/Chan and Balda/Matter Lab, focussing on computationally assisted drug discovery of Rho-GEF protein-protein interaction inhibitors. During her PhD, Clara got hands-on bioassay development experience and collaborated closely with cell biologists, raising her interest in interdisciplinary science and in methods to accelerate drug discovery in general. She joined the Parker Lab in September 2023 as a postdoctoral associate, where she seeks to research phenotype-driven ligand and target discovery, combining her previous Med Chem experience for library synthesis and the Parker lab's expertise in proteomic approaches. In her free time, Clara likes dancing and loves to travel to the most remote places on the earth.
Clara Gathmann, Ph.D.
Roy obtained his Masters' degree in chemistry from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, India where he worked on the diversity-oriented synthesis of natural product analogs. He earned his PhD degree in organic chemistry from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India. During his PhD (2011-2017) at the lab of Prof. Santanu Mukherjee, he focused on the development of organocatalysis methodologies for the enantioselective synthesis of diverse novel chemical scaffolds. He joined the lab of Prof. Abhishek Chatterjee at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA in July 2018 where his research was focused on the development and applications of genetic code expansion techniques for site-selective protein bioconjugation and time-resolved proteomics. Roy joined Prof. Parker’s lab in April 2023 with a motivation to contribute to the development of bifunctional molecules to re-direct protein function.
Soumya Jyoti Singha Roy, Ph.D.
Junchen was born in Yangpu, Shanghai. After graduating from high school, he went to Peking University in 2015, where he developed his interest in complex natural product total synthesis. In 2019, following his undergraduate study, Junchen join the Baran lab to complete the first total synthesis and structural diversification of portimine A and B, which led to the target identification and elucidation of the mechanism of action of these bioactive natural products. Since May. 2023, Junchen joined in the Parker lab as a postdoctoral associate, aiming at wedding synthetic chemical tools and chemoproteomics to discover new biological active molecules.
Junchen Tang, Ph.D.
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Steven (Tzu-Yuan) is from Taipei, Taiwan. He earned his bachelor's degree in Material Sciences and Engineering from National Taiwan University. During undergraduates, he revealed his interests and decided to pursue his master's degree in Molecular Medicine from National Taiwan University. Steven focused on lipoprotein function and metabolism in mice in Hsin-Fang Yang-Yen's lab in Academia Sinica, Taiwan, from 2014-2016. In 2018, he joined Jung-Chi Liao's lab in Academia Sinica as a research assistant. He dug into phosphoinositol regulation in the immune synapse in T cells and primary cilia-centriole ultrastructure using dSTORM super-resolution microscopy. In Nov 2020, he started his Ph.D. at Scripps. He joined Dr. Parker's lab, where he is interested in developing chemical tools to target immune-related solute carrier family proteins and to discover new potential therapeutic targets for autoimmune diseases.
Steven (Tzu-Yuan) Chiu, M.S.
5th Yr
Brandon is from Winchester, Massachusetts. In May 2021 he received his BS/MS in bioengineering with a concentration in cell and tissue engineering from Northeastern University. In 2019, Brandon completed a co-op placement in Celgene’s chemical biology and proteomics group. While at Celgene, Brandon characterized covalent probes, developed degradation assays, and performed chemical proteomics to profile the binding proteome of lead chemical series. In 2020, Brandon completed another co-op placement with Dr. Angela Koehler at MIT. During his time in the Koehler lab Brandon surveyed the target tractability of a panel of RNA-binding proteins. In October 2021, Brandon joined Dr. Parker’s lab where he is interested in developing novel chemical strategies to observe chemically induced protein-protein interactions.
Brandon Ng
4th yr
Skaggs Fellow
Kaylin grew up in the Twin Cities, Minnesota before receiving her Bachelor’s degree at Cornell University in biological sciences in 2022. During her undergraduate career, she was drawn to the intersection of chemistry and biology in the lab of Prof. Mikail Abbasov, which introduced her to the field of chemoproteomics. There, she became enthusiastic about organic synthesis while developing aminophilic bifunctional molecules to study targeted protein degradation. She joined the Parker Lab with a desire to expand her chemical proteomic interests and to explore the druggable proteome.
Kaylin Ro
3rd Yr
KUH U2C/TL1 Fellowship
Alisa (Qijia) is from Jilin in China. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences and master’s degree in Chemical Biology in Peking University Health Science Center. During her master research in Dr. Suwei Dong’s lab, she studied glycosylation of amyloid proteins using chemical methods. In December 2022, she joined Dr. Parker’s lab where she is interested in exploring cell state-dependent ligandability with chemoproteomics.
Alisa (Qijia) Wei
3rd Yr
Hou Wang Fellowship in the Skaggs Graduate School
Maddie grew up in Cambridge Canada before receiving her Bachelor’s degree in biological sciences at Yale University in 2022. She was introduced to basic science research while completing a neuroscience research placement in Nitabach Lab as a first-year student. She completed her senior thesis research under the mentorship of Dr. Gary Altwerger where she studied the use of small molecule chemotherapeutic compounds for exploiting DNA repair mechanisms in cancer. As a graduate student, Maddie joined the Parker Lab with the desire to use chemical proteomic approaches to investigate novel biology in T cell phenotypes and potential therapeutic applications in immune-oncology.
Maddie Ghazarian
1st yr
Skaggs Fellow
ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT
Kiara Sadler
Laboratory Administrative Coordinator
LAB VOLUNTEERS
Rosalind, a.k.a Rossi (joint w/Huang Lab)
ALUMNI
Postdoctoral Associates
Louis Conway, Ph.D. (2019-2025, currently: UCSD)
Appaso Jadhav, Ph.D. (2019-2025, currently: Calibr)
Christian Chaheine, Ph.D. (2021-2025, currently: Ideaya Biosciences)
Wesley (Wei) Wang, Ph.D. (2019-2025, currently: Pfizer)
Jacob Wozniak, Ph.D. (2020-2023, currently: Belharra Therapeutics)
Graduate Students
Ines Forrest, Ph.D. (2020-2025, currently: Postdoctoral Associate, Stanford University)
Rick Homan, Ph.D. (2019-2024, currently: Revolution Medicines)
Anny (Li-Yun) Chen, Ph.D. (2019-2024, currently: Amgen)
Interns & staff
Julian Liao (2024-2025 Research Assistant, currently: EMT training)
Alex Randall (2022 High School Intern)
Hannah Olson (2022 SURF Intern; currently: Undergraduate at Concordia College)
Richard Hawkins (2018-2021 Research Assistant; currently: Research Assistant at UF Scripps High-Throughput Molecular Screening Center)
Taylor Malone (2021 SURF Intern; currently: Undergraduate student at Amherst College)
Hayden Anderson (2019 SURF Intern; currently: Ph.D. student at Stanford University)
Juanita Sanchez (2018-2020 FAU intern; currently: Ph.D. student at UNC-Chapel Hill)
